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In the first month since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed gay marriages to resume in California, requests for marriage licenses grew dramatically throughout Southern California.

Southern California county clerks have seen a flood of couples requesting marriage licenses after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late June ended California's ban on same-sex unions.

Los Angeles County issued 47 percent more marriage licenses this July than in the same month last year. Applicants don't list their genders, so no one at the County Clerk's office was willing to attribute the increase to same-sex couples.

San Bernardino County was up 30 percent, and Orange County 23 percent.

The really big increase was in Riverside County — particularly in the desert town of Indio.

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Nury Martinez Campaign

Newly sworn-in Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez told her all-male colleagues, "We can do better" when it comes to electing women in the city.

Nury Martinez was sworn in as the only woman on the 15-member Los Angeles City Council Friday. In fact, she’s the only elected woman official in the nation’s second largest city. The mayor, city attorney and controller are all men.

“The fact that I’m the only woman in 18 elected offices in the city of Los Angeles…its embarrassing,” Martinez said in her first remarks at a city council meeting in Van Nuys, an area she represents.

“We can do better,” she said.

The former Los Angeles Unified School District board member encouraged her male colleagues to mentor young women and to encourage them to run for office: “Gentlemen, all of you have women in your districts that are doing great community work.”

Martinez's family, including her husband and young daughter, joined her in council chambers. She thanked her parents, who also attended.

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John Owens of the L.A. office of Munger, Tolles & Olson has been nominated to a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Michelle Friedland of the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson has been nominated to a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

President Obama has nominated a pair of Californians to fill vacant seats on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

John B. Owens is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Owens spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's office in California after graduating first in his class at Stanford Law School. He also clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Munger, Tolles could be losing another partner, but from its San Francisco office. The president also nominated Michelle T. Friedland to the 9th Circuit. She graduated second in her class at Stanford and clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

President Obama said "their impressive legal careers are testaments to the kind of thoughtful and diligent judges they will be."

One of these seats has been vacant for nearly a decade. Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond, says it's the longest appellate court vacancy in the country. He says both nominees are "well qualified and uncontroversial, so they should be smoothly confirmed." That won't happen until next year, he says, given the calendar and the number of nominees ahead of them.

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Frank Stoltze

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti promises to hold down salaries and require all Department of Water and Power employees to begin contributing to their healthcare costs.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is promising to hold down salaries at the Department of Water and Power during labor contract talks now under way. But it's unclear how much the mayor can squeeze from the powerful union that represents DWP workers, and whether the city council will back him up.

Members of the council often criticize the DWP and its water and power rates, but they also heap praise on the nation’s largest municipal utility.

“There are a lot of tremendous people who work there,” Councilman Tom LaBonge said when asked about the well-paid workers at the DWP. ”When it’s hot, they’re high on those poles, and deep in those ditches.”

Newly elected Councilman Gil Cedillo – a one-time union organizer – dismissed the idea that the city overpays DWP workers.

“I don’t think we’ve been too generous with workers of DWP or with any workers in the city of Los Angeles,” Cedillo said. “They have difficult jobs – some of them are very dangerous.”

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Rich Pedroncelli/AP

In his first year on the job, California prisons chief Jeffrey Beard is having to deal with a hunger strike by inmates.

The head of California's prison system will meet Friday with advocates for inmates who've been on a hunger strike for 25 days.

Inmates in the Security Housing Unit, or "SHU," at Pelican Bay State Prison launched the protest on July 8. Prisoners in the SHUs are restricted to their cells for 22 hours a day, with little human contact. They want California officials to change policies that have kept them and thousands of other inmates in restrictive and austere conditions for years and, in some cases, decades.

About the blog: Represent!

Represent! is your eye on how well government serves citizens and the public interest in Southern California. KPCC's politics and government team posts frequently on transparency, civic engagement, reform efforts and accountability. We invite your comments and suggestions — follow us on Twitter at the links below.